


Durchs Suchen und Stolpern lernen wir

by onion_kid



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Charles in a Wheelchair, Erik is a Father, M/M, no common language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 01:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13066596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onion_kid/pseuds/onion_kid
Summary: Prompt:Charles is the new school teacher in a small town. He has big city ideas for educating the town. Erik's kids are precocious and in some ways feral after their mother dies. Erik works in the steel mill, long hours. He shows up on the new teachers first day with flowers so as to make a good impression and a plea on his kids behalf. He was expecting the same type of schoolmarm that he'd had as a boy. So he's shocked to find a handsome young man (or omega). Maybe he attends Professor Xavier's night school? Maybe courting?A/N: Oh no! I'm so sorry to anyone who read this while the CSS was messed up and some of the lines were duplicated :( It's all better now.





	Durchs Suchen und Stolpern lernen wir

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheDreadPirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDreadPirate/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [TheDreadPirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDreadPirate/pseuds/TheDreadPirate) in the [secret_mutant_madness_2017](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/secret_mutant_madness_2017) collection. 



> Hahahaha I saw this whole challenge about five hours ago and wanted to join in so here you go, suckers, this is completely un-proofread and I'm hella tired. Enjoy.
> 
> I'm very sorry about the terrible CSS, and especially so if you're German and e instead of umlauts make you sad. Not all of the German has been translated into English -- this is intentional.  
>   
>  
> 
> “If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”  
> ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Pietro stops. 

Pietro speeds off to find his sister, and Erik sighs, scooping up the twins’ bags and looking at the handful of flowers he’d gathered in the meadow that morning. Apples had been traditional when he was a child, but they were far more uncommon now, and flowers from the meadow was all Erik could afford, really. His job took him away from his children for long hours at a time and barely kept a roof over their heads, but there wasn’t much more he could do. Magda had been the one to bring them to this small town, the home of her mother’s mother, and the family farm she was the only one left to till. But now Magda was dead, and the children ran wild. They, at least, understood the local language. He didn’t need to. The villagers tolerated him enough to permit his manual labour at the steel mill, and no more.

Perhaps they were right, and he was cursed. At the very least, he would bring this new schoolteacher the flowers, and perhaps she would see it for the plea and the apology that it was meant as. His mother had been the one to teach him his letters, and she had been as kind and gentle as they came. If this new teacher could only see that Pietro and Wanda were clever, and bored, and only somewhat given to trouble, he was sure she could handle them as well as Erik’s mother had handled him. Pietro and Wanda, at least, weren’t prone to sending the cutlery drawer flying when they were frustrated.

His children scramble back into the house, and Erik calmly deposits a bag into each of their waiting hands.

" -" 

He picks up the flowers anyway, because this teacher is his childrens’ chance to better themselves. They can do better than their father. They _will_ do better than their father. Pietro twitches at Erik’s side, a sure sign that he’s not actually walking at a human pace, but running back and forth while his father and sister take their mortal time. He has, at least, stopped suggesting that Erik is bringing flowers to their teacher to woo her, which is a blessing in itself. 

Once he reaches the doorway of the schoolhouse, Erik realises why Pietro’s jeering has stopped. The new teacher is not what Erik had expected. Instead of a warm, matronly woman bustling about the classroom, a man sits at the desk. His eyes are as blue as the lobelias in Erik’s hand, and his mouth nearly as red as the crimson clover. He’s ethereal and beautiful and the kind of person his children will likely break in less than a day. The only thing that stops Erik from running full-pelt out the door is the look in the man’s blue, blue eyes — kind, just like Erik’s mother. Perhaps this man is what his children need after all. 

“Ich hab Ihnen Blumen gebracht,” Erik says, and thrusts them at the teacher, who gives a little half-smile that makes Erik’s heart melt in his chest.

“Thank you, I think,” he says. “I don’t understand at all, but thank you.”

“He doesn’t speak English,” Wanda says. It’s a phrase Erik is intimately, hatefully familiar with, but he doesn’t mind Wanda saying it. Pietro has run off somewhere. Erik isn’t worried. He’ll be back.

“Oh,” the teacher says. “Is he your father? Are those for me?”

“He’s worried you’ll hate us because of the curse, so he brought you a gift,” Wanda says.

The teacher frowns. Why is he frowning? “Wanda, was ist los? Ist er sauer?”

“Please take his flowers,” Wanda says softly.

The teacher reaches out across the desk to take the flowers from Erik, so he mustn’t be angry after all, though he still frowns. Erik is glad, because a man so easy to anger would be bad for his children. “Wanda, was ist sein Name?”

“My dad’s Erik,” Wanda says. “What should we call you?”

“Charles. Charles Xavier in full, but I’m not certain that my family should like to be connected to me, so just Charles will do for now.”

“Hallo, Tscharles,” Erik says gravely. The name is the only part of that he caught, but it’s enough.

“Hello, Erik,” Charles replies, dumps the pencils from his pencil-cup and holds it out to Erik’s daughter. “And… Wanda, was it? I wonder if you could fetch me some water for these flowers?”

“I’ll do it!” Pietro says. Erik’s not really sure how long he’s been in the room, but it doesn’t matter. Pietro takes the cup, then nearly immediately hands it back, water sloshing from the edge of the cup and hitting the floor with a splat. Charles slowly takes the flowers and places them carefully in the cup, eyes never moving from Pietro. This is the moment where most decent folk begin to scream, and if only his children will be given this one chance Erik will do anything that is required of him.

“Ah,” Charles says. “The… curse.”

“Yes,” Wanda says. “All of us.”

“All of us indeed,” Charles says. Erik is startled to realise that while the words were as foreign as ever, Charles’ lips did not move.

Charles looks at their little family, at Wanda and Erik and the place Pietro recently stood. “You’re not alone.”

Wanda tells him what Charles has said, and he cries tears of joy.

 

* * *

 

Most days Erik begins work long before the children begin school. Wanda begins accompanying him in the morning to pick flowers, then, as the weather turns cold, helps him whittle small trinkets from wood, or weave a basket from reeds, or any other thing he thinks Charles might like. Once a week, before day breaks and Erik must begin work, they find their way into the schoolroom through the high-up window that Charles never closes, an offering for whichever god blessed him with Charles’ presence. The difference in his children is truly astounding — somehow Charles has instilled in them hopes and dreams, and invigorated them with ways they can make a difference. The village, which before complained that it was cursed with bad luck, finds suddenly that their houses have been cleaned spotless in the night, and begins leaving their doors open and treats out for the brownies who are helping them. Pietro, who could never afford sweets and has certainly never had cake baked with precious white flour, has been looking especially smug of late. Wanda, who was always so shy, is leaving the house more, and Charles has somehow talked a woman into teaching her how to weave. She gives her first scarf, woven from lumpy wool, to Charles in one of Erik’s weekly offerings, and claims that he has worn it each day since.

Two months after they first meet, Erik returns home to find Wanda cooking under the watchful eyes of Charles. The stew smells of meat, probably rabbit, which Erik certainly hadn’t provided. Charles must have brought it.

“Er war allein, Vati,” Wanda explains, and Erik nods, and smiles at Charles. After all Charles has done for his family, it seems only natural to welcome him in. He needn’t be alone.

“Test the taste for me, please,” Wanda says, and scoops a small serving into a bowl. Charles slides his hands down in an unfamiliar movement and scoots his chair out a little to take the bowl. Erik wonders if perhaps he might have another curse, besides the silent talking, but when he walks closer he can see the true reason beneath the blanket covering Charles. He’s in a wheelchair. Another curse, indeed. Had Wanda and Pietro brought him here, along the rough, uneven road, in naught but a rickety wooden wheelchair? He certainly hopes his children have more sense than that, but it looks like perhaps they haven’t.

The stew is better than Erik has had in a long time, and watching Charles with his children nourishes his soul just as much. Erik can’t help but smile at this kind, whole-hearted man. He’s certain Magda would have loved him just as much. When night falls, he offers Charles his modest, moss-filled mattress, and carefully lifts him from the ground to the floor. Perhaps Pietro might build a bedframe, in case Charles happens to visit again. Certainly his skill with timber has improved after all the odd jobs he’s done recently.

He’d like to say thank you, but Charles wouldn’t understand, anyway. He smoothes his hair back and presses a kiss to his forehead. In the candlelight, Charles looks like something from a dream.

“Schlaf gut,” he says, and leaves to lay on the floor by the hearth. A phantom kiss presses itself against his cheek, and he falls asleep smiling.

 

* * *

 

Each morning, from then on, instead of taking Charles gifts, he takes Charles himself to the schoolhouse, and Charles is with his children when he returns home each night. He begins to use his curse at the steel mill, first for little things, and then to save a man from certain death in the crushing jaws of machinery. They don’t call it a curse after that, and they pay Erik for as much work as he was doing before, only now with the use of his power he can complete it in half the time. Charles looks beautiful in the morning sun, though Erik would never say such a thing aloud. It doesn’t matter. Charles wouldn’t understand, even if he did.

Pietro builds a new bed frame the next month, and comes home bearing handfuls of old man’s beard for Wanda to stuff Charles’ new mattress with. It takes until the month after that he and Wanda make another, to replace the mattress they’ve been sharing since they were small. It seems that none of them can live without Charles, not after he’s filled such a space in their lives.

“Ich will Englisch lernen,” Erik says one day, surprising both his children and Charles. Wanda dutifully relays his message, and Charles smiles.

“I suppose you have the time now, my friend, since you work so much less,” he says. “But I could make it easier. I don’t suppose you’d let me…?”

He wiggles his fingers next to his head, and Erik nods, not waiting for Wanda to translate for him. He trusts Charles. Whatever he plans on doing with his power, Erik knows Charles won’t harm him.

It’s strange, having Charles in his head. He almost feels warm, like his voice, deep and rich and pleasant. Erik doesn’t really have words to describe it. He’s not quite sure what Charles is doing, but just having him there is nice. He wonders if Charles would be able to feel it if he used his power, too.

“That ought to do it,” Charles says.

“Do what?” Wanda asks.

“Do you mean to say,” Erik says, “That all these months you could have taught me English in less than ten minutes, and you never once mentioned it?”

“I didn’t want to invade your privacy,” Charles says as though he hasn’t just performed a minor miracle. “The mind is a very… intimate place, you know. I don’t just wander around in the brain of everybody I meet.”

“Then wander in mine all you like,” Erik says, and Charles smiles, that beautiful smile that Erik loves so much. He doesn’t say it aloud, but it doesn’t matter. Charles understands.


End file.
